Stranger, Acquaintance, Friend?

God keeps putting you in my path.

Every time I am taken aback.

I don't know if your care is real.

My heart doubts and I refuse to feel

your love.

Why do you refuse to be dissuaded

when I stubbornly try to live life unaided

by you or any dearer friend?

I hardly know you, but it's through you God sends

His love.

I struggle to believe the gentle and genuine words you speak.

My desire is strong, but my faith is weak.

And yet I relive each moment, craving connection.

Your inner compass of self-confidence leads me in the direction of

self love.

Thank you to my 8 year old sister for helping me find a rhyme for the word "connection." :)

When feet hit pavement

When feet hit pavement

as you turn and run from your problems,

the forward motion becomes:

a swish,

a swirl,

collapse!

The mess of life implodes.

The black hole of your mind

sucks you in,

warps time,

crinkles life,

and distorts all light.

Leaving you paralyzed in checkered shadow.

But rewind- this time don't turn.

return to the pivotal moment and stand firm.

When feet hit pavement

as you stomp forward

right foot first,

raise your hands.

Gesture large and loud.

And stare your problems down.

In your rebellion-

the outcry, the expression, the explosion

will ripple out and repress

the anxiousness,

leaving you to shove aside the problem,

brush off your shoulders,

and strut forward

feet hitting pavement.

note: still needs some work. possible edits to follow. any suggestion on better punctuation use?

Weeping Starlight (Have Hope and Get to Work!)

Some of you may have already read this poem in my notes posted on Facebook. It's one of my older ones, but definitely a fave. (Which is funny considering how much I like to make wishes on stars, dandelions, wishing rocks, pennies, etc.) Anyways, I was just reminded of it as I was reading a talk from General Conference yesterday. In Elder Steven E. Snow's talk on Hope he said, "Hope is an emotion which brings richness to our everyday lives... hope brings a certain calming influence... our hopes can lead to dreams which can inspire us to action... Hope can inspire dreams and spur us to realize those dreams. Hope alone, however, does not cause us to succeed. Many honorable hopes have gone unfulfilled, shipwrecked on the reefs of good intentions and laziness." (This also goes back to a post I wrote on how you should really figure out what you want and go after it.)

Sometimes it may be hard to have hope, really hard even, but we shouldn't give in to our doubts. There is no power there, or at least no power in OUR hands. We should choose faith and choose to recognize our potential. We may feel powerless, and this may lead to placing the responsibility of our wish fulfillment on undeserving objects. INSTEAD we should enjoy the playfulness of hoping and wishing on these things while recognizing that the ultimate power is within. And with God. We have the choice, the power, the potential, and the responsibility to ourselves to discover what it is we desire out of life and then...have hope and get to work!

weeping starlight
from a shooting star
drips down, trickles down
glitters and sparkles
cleanses
travels through night
leaves only night
passes through and fades
till the nearest star returns
bright beyond all else
warming and illuminating
a different kind of shooting star
circling and returning
raining down its glory
reigning over the life it gives
a light and life we take for granted
because despite its constant presence
it becomes regular and trite
while shooting stars in passing
surprise us
with their special and transient light
the sun with its ever present glow
should be the focus of our wishes
for with the work of day
we are what make them come to pass.

Clouds in their stillness

Lately, construction workers have been working on the outside of my apartment building, periodically leaving plastic sheeting over the windows for days at a time... even when weather is hot... and I am sick and therefore would love to have the normal beautiful view out my window that inspired this poem a couple years ago.

time slips through my fingers

like I have no grip

all I want is to paint a picture

of the sky

as the clouds in their stillness betray

the movement of the cosmos

and the fleetingness of life

"How insecure and vain we humans be..."

How insecure and vain we humans be.

Our flaws and imperfections all we sometimes see.

Incapable of putting endless wants aside to fill our basic needs,

we forget - on this continual quest

that we must choose our own peace and light and happiness.

These are things we cannot find,

when by the world we have been blinded.

A grander vision exists than being absorbed in self and worldliness.

We must neglect feelings of being only second best

and preoccupations with what we possess and how we dress.

Trade them in for contentment with the lives we live and who we are

See beyond the world, our footstool - to the skies

for we need dreams as we need stars.

To be the stars of our own lives

we need a little starlight in our eyes.

To truly see -

we need love of life as is

and goals to share and give.

Written on Christmas day 2009, this was my rebellion against getting what I call "the gimmies" and watching the world not understand what truly matters. Since then more nuances have come to my attention about how we need to not just resist worldliness in physical things, possessions adn appearances and such, but also in our self-opinions. I am currently reading a book entitled The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are by Brene Brown. So far it is really good. I am learning a lot and intend to blog more about it later. But I highly suggest watching her lecture on Ted.com. Here is the link:

http://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_on_vulnerability.html

Water source

God has an immense love for you

and it is evidenced in the impossible-

A source of patience that trickles through the cracks in my heart

and flows out in little loving gestures

I am prompted to do to reach out to you.

Even though you pull away in pain,

my heart aches as much for you as it does for me

and the water keeps on coming.

Sometimes I try to stop the flow

I ignore your need and struggles,

selfishly seal up the fissures with my fear,

but around my will, the water goes.

Sometimes I feel the source is dwindling,

and patience only comes drop by drop.

But each one comes straight from heaven

as God erodes the stubborn pieces of my heart of rock.

Nighttime thoughts

I need to stop thinking my deepest thoughts at night.
I am sinking ever deeper into darkness; forgetting light.
I come full circle starting again where I begun.
Now paving the trail I blazed before, I try to color in the lines.
It's hard to retrace thoughts that made no sense the first few times.
I hope to fall off the path and into sleep's welcoming arms.
I'd much prefer sweet fiction from my dreams
to this middle state where I can't distinguish reality from how things seem.
I wish I could see the truth through the confusion in my heart and head.

I don't remember when I wrote this. I just found it in a notebook of mine with all sorts of doodles, lists and poems. This is so very true of my life though, because I always try to think through important and confusing things at night when I really don't have a clear perspective of things.